The idea for a Wenner-Gren conference on the culture concept was
first suggested to me in January 1987, at the first symposium I
participated in as president of the foundation. At that symposium,
“Gender Hierarchies,” anthropologists from the four fields found a
number of common interests, especially around processes of social
learning, and it seemed that the beleaguered culture concept might still
have a role to play in exploring such cross-field concerns. A conference
that would reexamine the concept and ask whether we still need it, and
why, seemed timely. The idea was not pursued then, but over the
subsequent years I continued to look for potential organizers who might
realize it. It was finally in 2000, following upon a proposal from Richard
Fox and Barbara King, that a conference on culture came to fruition. It
was the last Wenner-Gren symposium initiated under my watch.

In 1987 as in 2000, anthropologists (primarily the American variety)
were beset by “culture worry,” the theme of this book: the uneasiness,
apprehension, or defensiveness felt by many at what they perceived as
threats to their core concept, culture. Such threats came from criticisms
of the concept from within the discipline as well as from its appropriation and, too often, misuse in other academic fields, in public
discourse, and in political contexts. Then as now, anthropologists often
carried on debates with colleagues without explicitly defining the
concept, under the assumption that they, at least, knew what they
intended by it, at the same time they complained that others who
adopted the term did not understand the anthropological meaning. Yet
every anthropologist knows that there is little agreement within the
discipline on exactly what is meant by culture. Why, then, do anthropologists care so much—worry so much—about the fate of a concept
whose meaning they do not share?

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